Pic1: The view of the city-state
Singapore is a world famous city, a nation and a state which is located at the southern border of the Malay Peninsula. About 5.704 million people lived in 728.6km^2 area and has a parliamentary democracy system under the president of Halim Yacob. The port of Singapore is one of the busiest in the world thus the diversity of its economy. Its a treasure island for investors because of lower tax rate.The island city state is the largest tourist attraction place in the world because of its glamorous, foods and festivals. A well design infrastructure, colourfull streets and public art installations upgrade its liveliness,
In December 2019, an unknown infection was detected in Wuhan, China and rapidly spread around the world and become a global pandemic. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) which is known as COVID-19 was announced as a global pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) on 30 January 2020.Singapore has to face this unfortunate situation on 23 January 2020 by detecting first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the country. After that, it spread through locals in February and March 2020. Then the multiple clusters were detected in Singapore by huge proportion. At the time of writing, the number of total confirmed cases were 85953 and 76 were died because of Covid-19.
Fig1: Visualization of Singapore
Singapore is situated near the equator and has a typically tropical climate. There are two monsoon seasons as Northeast from December to March and Southeast from June to September. So, rainfall is a part of the country (around 150mm each month) and the weather can be unpredictable. Despite the unpredictability of the weather, Singapore experiences brilliant sunshine as it does rain. In inter monsoon periods, hot afternoons are common (maximum above 32 degrees Celsius) and thunderstorms occur in the afternoon and early evening. Not only inter monsoon season but also Southeast Monsoon, thunderstorms are regular thing. And average temperature around 31 degrees Celsius during the day and humidity level is in between 70%-90%.
Since the Covid-19 affected to Singapore, the government took immediate actions to slow down the spread of the virus. The “circuit breaker lockdown” was implemented to safe people by announcing to stay at home and initially, it was applied from 7 April to 4 May 2020. Re-opening of the country only limited for economy activities.
But they implemented lockdown as following.
phase 1-from 2 June to 8 June
phase 2-from 19 June to 27 December
phase 3-from 28 December 2020 to 7 May 2021.
Now its ban arrivals from some regions, recommend people to stay at home and schools and workplaces were recommended to close.After a decline in community cases, it was announced that Singapore would re-enter “phase 3 Heightened Alert”, with re-opening to commence in two stages. The first stage on 14 June with the limit on social gatherings increased to 5 people, the second stage on 21 June with the resumption of dining with 5 people.
Fig2:Summary of cases of Singapore
During this pandemic it is essential to conduct Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to detect the people with virus to lower the community spread. It is the most accurate way, but usually take a day or two for the results. In Singapore, it is compulsory for some individuals to have Covid-19 PCR test, such as those who are working in high-risk sectors. The laboratories in Singapore are operating 80% capacity to fulfill the demand. In earlier April 2020, the capacity was as an average 2900 PCR tests per day but now they have capacity to conduct between 60000-70000 tests per day from January 2021 onward.
Pic2: vaccination programme
Singapore has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with 80% of the population fully vaccinated. Assuming that each person needs 2 doses, at least 9,223,226 doses of Covid-19 vaccine are given, which is enough to vaccinate about 80.9%of the country’s population. The government invested more than one billion Singapore dollars for Pfizer Bio-tech, Moderna etc. Singapore was the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.
Fig3: Covid-19 confirmed cases in Singapore
According to the graph there’s a huge increase in confirmed cases on April 2020 onwards. From October 2020 to July 2021 ther was no sush huge increase in the confirmed cases, although some cases were reported. But, in July 2021 onward again there’s a increase in confirmed cases in Singapore.
Fig4: Covid-19 recovered cases in Singapore
As figure3, the behavior of recovered cases were reported can be seen.
Fig5: Covid-19 death cases in Singapore
In Singapore, the number of death cases are less than 76 in the time of writing. In above figure we can see that death cases are lower than 4 during this time period.
To get an overall idea about confirmed, recovered and death cases in Singapore refer figure(5).
Fig6: Total no.of confirmed, death, recovered cases in Singapore
Fig7: Covid-19 active cases in Singapore
By looking at the above graph, active cases are higher than in 2020 compared to 2021 during the considered time period.
Fig8:Comparison Daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Thailand
When comparing the daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Thailand, we can see that Thailand has the highest confirmed cases in 2021 compared to Singapore.
Fig9:Comparison Daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Indonesia
When comparing the daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Indonesia, we can see that Indonesia has the higher confirmed cases compared to Singapore.
Fig10:Comparison Daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Malaysia
When comparing the daily Covid-19 confirmed cases between Singapore and Malaysia, we can see that Indonesia has the higher confirmed cases compared to Singapore.
Fig11: Covid-19 deaths in Singapore and near countries
As figure(10), Singapore has lowest death rate compared to near countries.
Fig12: Covid-19 confirmed cases in Singapore and near countries
Above figure shows that Indonesia has highest recovered cases than Malaysia and Thailand. We can get overall idea about how the recovered cases changed over the near countries.
Fig13: Covid-19 recovered cases in Singapore and near countries
Above figure shows that Indonesia has highest confirmed cases than Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We can get overall idea about how the confirmed cases changed over the near countries during this time period. Since, Singapore has lowest confirmed cases compared to near countries.
since India hits the highest number of deaths in Asia, after china, it will be useful to compare how the deaths in Singapore has varied over the time.
Fig14: Covid-19 death cases in India
Fig15: Covid-19 overall comparison of cases in India
As figure 14, we can see that confirmed, death and recovered cases in Singapore are negligible when comparing it with India.
Fig16: Covid-19 confirmed cases in Singapore
As firue(16), the total covid-19 confirmed cases of Singapore is much lower than China. Since, we all know how the pandemic affect to China so it is clear that Singapore has lowest confirmed cases compared to China.
since USA hits the highest number of deaths in the world, it will be useful to compare how the deaths in Singapore has varied over the time. Deaths in Singapore are negligible when comparing it with USA.
Fig17: the graph of Covid-19 deaths in USA
As 27 September 2021, active cases of 14283, total of 89539 confirmed cases with 75176 recoveries and 80 deaths were reported due to the global pandemic of Covid-19. According to the report which I analyzed, we can see that Singapore took better decision makings comparing nearest countries. Singapore currently has a case fatality rate of 0.09%, one of the lowest in the world. As I think, it is because of contact tracing and testing to identify cases, mandatory mask-wearing, and hospitalization of all high-risk patients etc. Singapore has comparatively strict criteria for classifying COVID-19 deaths, counting patients who were infected with COVID but died of other causes as non-COVID deaths.
We can conclude that Singapore has managed to slow down the Covid-19 in the country with their best. Because, by looking at the graphs, we can’t see such control in confirmed and death cases in nearest countries compared to Singapore. May be it’s because of Singapore’s population have been acting very responsibility and trust in the regulations asked to follow.